3 Ways Your Work with Influencers Can Get You Promoted

Influencer marketing is a practice that’s being adopted by an increasing number of brands, with a reported 93% of marketers leveraging the social media marketing strategy. It’s a smart move, as 61% of consumers trust influencers’ recommendations, compared to the 38% who trust brand-directed content.

The need for forward-thinking Influencer Marketing Managers will grow exponentially as companies of all sizes continue to invest in this channel. This is the perfect opportunity to make a huge impact on your business through your work with influencers and launch yourself into the next step of your career. Here are 3 ways your influencer marketing efforts can get you promoted. 

1. Influencer marketing is the fastest growing online customer acquisition method. 

Influencer marketing is expected to be worth $21.1 billion by the end of this year, despite years of nay-sayers claiming the “death of influencer marketing.” And although we’ve experienced a global economic downturn in the past year, marketers are continuing to invest in this channel, with 68% of brands planning to increase their influencer marketing budgets in 2023.

The popularity of this channel has continued largely due to its cost-effectiveness and proven returns. Data shows:

• Influencer marketing was rated as the fastest growing online customer acquisition channel, overtaking organic search, paid search, email marketing, and more. 
• On average, businesses generate $6.50 in revenue for each $1 invested in influencer marketing. Even more impressively, the top 13% of businesses are seeing revenue of $20 or more per every $1 spent. 
• A majority of marketers believe that influencer marketing attracts higher-quality customers to their business.

Just take a look at Outer, the outdoor furniture brand named the #1 Fastest Growing DTC Brand in 2020. In 2022, Outer scaled their influencer-affiliate marketing program and in turn increased their affiliate sales by an impressive 2,100% in less than 18 months, according to Shae Sattler, Outer’s Partnerships and Community Marketing Manager.

Showcasing tangible results like these will not only get you the influencer marketing buy-in you need from your leadership team, but also put you on the fast track to a well-deserved promotion. 

2. Influencer marketing empowers you to become your company’s content powerhouse. 

If your company is like most businesses out there, you’re probably in need of a lot of content — whether it’s to fuel your various marketing channels or to personalize your marketing to several different audience segments. The good news is that you can single handedly provide all the content your business needs, simply by leveraging your influencer-generated content (IGC). 

Influencer-generated content has several benefits, including:

• It’s much faster and cost-effective to create than traditional means of generating content. Influencers are like one-person creative teams — they act as the photographer, videographer, editor, creative director, model, and more. This means you can skip the time-consuming professional photoshoot, and still get high-quality content back within days, not weeks or months. 
• It’s much more diverse and authentic, which is what today’s consumers want to see from brands. Influencers come from all walks of life and resonate more with consumers. Not to mention, they can shoot in various locations, from in their home kitchen to their local ice cream shop. 
• It’s higher-performing. Studies show that IGC achieves 2x the engagement of brand-directed content, while IGC-based ads gain 4x higher click-through rates. Turning top-performing influencer-generated content into branded content ads allows brands to stretch this impact even further, significantly boosting return on ad spend (ROAS).

Not only does IGC produce amazing results simply from influencers posting on their own accounts, but you can also stretch its impact by repurposing it across many different channels.

The best influencer marketers have a broad knowledge of all of the needs of their marketing teams and how they can benefit from influencer-generated content. Start with the channel that is most important to your organization. For example:

• Paid ads need to be constantly refreshed and highly targeted in order to maintain a good relevance score and to be seen by a large audience.
• Emails need to be relevant to the season or campaign you are running. Plus, influencer-generated content gives emails an authentic touch. Newsletters need  to remain relevant to the season. 
• Websites and product microsites need to give information to consumers.  People like to see reviews and testimonials from real people before making a purchase. Having IGC on your site makes it seem more authentic.

Then, work closely with each team to see what pieces of content are performing the best on each channel. Use data when choosing the next batch of influencers to work with. The result will be a never-ending cycle of content production, testing, and conversions.

For Ruggable, influencer-generated content has been a key tool in driving awareness and engagement on social media, as well as across the brand’s paid channels. By working with influencers who represent their existing customer profile — moms, pet owners, interior designers, and lifestyle influencers — Ruggable was able to produce content that deeply resonates. In fact, the IGC garnered over 36 million impressions and 1 million engagements — and when repurposed into paid ads, the brand saw 32% higher return on ad spend (ROA) and 25% lower Cost per Engagement (CPA).

By leveraging influencer-generated content, you’ll not only be helping your teams save a huge chunk of the budget, but also you’ll also be producing results that speak for themselves. 

3. Influencer marketing is a key building block for a passionate brand community. 

Building a strong brand community should be at the top of every brand’s priority list. Today, consumers lean on the opinions and personal experiences of others to make their own purchasing decisions. Validation from like-minded individuals is what makes consumers trust that a specific product or service is worth investing in. 

So, how do you build a passionate community of brand enthusiasts? 

Because influencers are often community builders of their own, partnering with well-aligned influencers in deeper and more meaningful ways is your first step. By creating spaces where people can connect around shared interests, influencers build trust and authority with their followers, which can be effectively transferred over to a brand if introduced the right way.

But this doesn’t mean that getting a random influencer to post a one-off #sponsored post will get the job done. Every smart marketer knows that influencer marketing is a relationship game. Today, it’s all about building authentic relationships with creators who are true fans of your brand. 

With the help of influencers, you can spread the word about your brand in a more authentic way than from your brand’s corporate account, and recruit even more brand fans to join your community. 

Lululemon is an expert at building a tight-knit brand community, specifically through its world-class brand ambassador program powered by local fitness instructors and elite athletes. Each ambassador lives a very active lifestyle, making it easy for them to incorporate the high-end activewear brand into their lives. In addition, because the ambassadors are experts in the fitness world, they have the credibility to educate their audiences on the products they promote. Lululemon ambassadors also lead fitness classes for its wider community, provide their honest feedback prior to a new product launch, and act as a true extension of the brand. These long-term partnerships have massively contributed to Lululemon’s success, showcasing the importance its ambassadors play in the brand community.

There are many ways to activate your brand community in partnership with influencers. Whether it’s by turning your long-term influencers into brand ambassadors — like Lululemon — or by hosting an in-person event together, co-create your brand story with your favorite creators. That way, you can build a community of brand fans who can build a buzz online, provide social proof, and drive conversions for your brand. 

Leverage influencer marketing to take your career to the next level 

If you want to grow your career in influencer marketing these skills will put you in a great position to branch out of the typical Social Media Manager role and put you on track to becoming the Director of Brand Marketing, or Director of Content. One of the great qualities of C-level marketers is to understand how the entire marketing organization can work together to reach a common goal. If you adopt this mindset in the early days of your career, you’ll be well on your way to a fruitful career.

Ready to share your influencer campaign successes with key stakeholders? Download Aspire’s Campaign Wrap Deck to showcase all of your accomplishments.